Dark Eldar vs Grey Knights: 5 Tips for DE

For those of you who don't know, Dark Eldar is my main army. Since I got back into the game at the start of 5th edition, I've played as Dark Eldar more than any other army. Surprisingly, I can't think of a time when I played against Dark Eldar prior to last week. I played against my buddy Rob with my Draigo-wing against his 1,000 points of DE. While GK prevailed, I did notice some things that Dark Eldar players can do to make it a little more difficult for Grey Knights:

Out-range: This means limited use of blasters and a greater focus on dark lances and splinter cannons. Blasters can still be used but not as a primary attack method. Force them to come to you, then skirt away. Night Shields would also be beneficial here.

Backfield disruption: My opponent used Scourges and forced my Dreadnoughts to deal with them. Two heat lances at close range became a higher priority than 3 Dark Lances at range (Ravager). I could ee Reaver Jetbikes also being useful in this role.

Shoot lances first: When dealing with Paladins (or just about any other unit really), shoot lances first to potentially remove models, then fire on reduced squad size with Splinter Cannons (less bodies to allocate wounds on).

Overwhelm: Force your opponent to make choices with target saturation. I've played Dark Eldar for quite a while, but was still overwhelmed when I was forced to deal with them. I wasn't sure which targets to go after or which to ignore. Baiting your opponent with some juicy targets to preserve your more important units may prove to be beneficial.

Wyches vs Psyflemen: Similar to the backfield disruption units, Wyches with haywire grenades are a great way to tie up Psyflemen dreads. Chances are you won't destroy it, but you will prevent it from shooting, and you have an invulnerable save to minimize the wounds you take on.

Other Strategies:

Courtesy of Bigtoof:

1. Beastpacks
A group of Beasts, nicely allocated can be a pain for GK to bring down, and if they are running things on foot (like Paladins), the Beasts have a big unit footprint that has to be dealt with and thus can force some charges to try and clear them out, thus leaving the GK/Paladins in the open when the carnage clears.

2. Harlequins
It seems sort of odd, but Harlies are actually fairly decent vs Dreads, as they are S4 on the charge with rending. With WS5, they can actually get a fair number of rends. Plus, with their flipbelts and Shadowseer shenanigans, they can add a good deal of aggravation to your opponent. Also, you know, Fusion Pistols in a pinch.

3. Huskblade Archon
I only wanted to add this in, as if your opponent does not take 2++ staves in his Paladins, a Shadowfield/Huskblade Archon will slowly grind them down, if not make them fall back and then chase them off the table.

4. Talos
I know Taloi are kind of a love/hate sort of thing, but keeping one in your army is pretty useful if you are continuously getting Dread-locked. (Much like almost EVERYTHING in the DE assault options)

5. Night Shields to limit range and Liquifiers to keep MEQ on their toes.